Fine Young Cannibals

"She drives me crazy, woo, woo, woo!"

Remember that song? I was quite young when that came out, but I can relate to it now, for Jenna, indeed, "drives me crazy."

Early this morning, she woke up at 130am with the fake whining/crying bit. "Mommy, I neeeeeeeeeeed you!" she cried to me, as she stood by my bedside.
"Honey, I love you, but you need to sleep in your own bed," I replied. This, of course, was met with a deep inhalation that left her little, peanut body in screams that rival those of the banshees in my dreams. And, obviously, these lovely screams woke up Little E, who soon added her own discerning decibels to the mix.

Two screaming kids. Not even two o'clock in the morning. Two very tired parents. Thinking of drinking too much Jack and Coke, so they can get more than two hours of sleep. It's all in pairs, baby, all in pairs.

Scott took Clairey back to the room, whilst I worked on getting Jenna to (a)stop the incessant screaming and (b)get out of my bed and into hers. No amount of cajoling could get this child to silence. I started with the normal, "Jenna, I'm not ASKING, I'm TELLING you to stop the screaming NOW," then moved to the, "WHY? WHY are you screaming? Tell me so I can help you!" then finally moved to the rarely-used-but-pulled-out-in-the-most-dire-of-circumstances, "I will give you CANDY if you stop screaming." Nada. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. This child, unfortunately, inherited my amazing ability to be stubborn beyond all belief. She wanted to sleep with me, and there was no way in hell I was going to get her out of my bed.

Background: Usually, this isn't a big problem. I love to have the girls sleep with us, UPON OCCASION. When they've been climbing into your bed EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. for the past two weeks, you have to draw the line somewhere. Besides, they take up the ENTIRE bed, and I end up having to sleep all contorted-like, you know, with a foot under my jaw, a little hand in my hair, a nose pressed directly up against mine, and half of my body hanging off the bed.

She kept on screaming. Then I lost my cool. I was a bad mom and spanked her out of anger. I hate that. I HATE it. No excuse. A few minutes later, I picked her up (still screaming) and took her to her room, where Claire was still screaming. It's surround sound. Jenna lied in bed, screaming; I held Claire in the rocking chair, screaming; Scott was on the bed, passing out from sheer exhaustion; and I sat there, rocking back and forth, screaming in my head, while listening to the screams of my children. Who are no screaming just for the sake of screaming because they've gotten to the point of screaming where they can't stop.

Finally, Oh Dear God, FINALLY, they both passed out. No doubt from the lack of oxygen from SCREAMING SO LOUD. Then, I just sat there and looked at them. Feeling my patience restore itself, and my anger just float away. I looked at them, sleeping contently in their beds. Little rosebud lips parted in dreams (screaming dreams, I'm sure), flushed cheeks (again, from screaming), raspy breath (you guessed it--from screaming) and thought about how much I wanted to pick them up and take them to bed with me.

Parenting--it's such a vicious cycle.